Lt. Gen. Mick Bednarek is the top U.S. officer serving in Iraq. / Thomas Brown, Military Times

by Michelle Tan, Military Times

by Michelle Tan, Military Times

The advances of Islamic militants in Iraq are not an isolated problem but rather a "growing global challenge" that needs to be dealt with, the top American general in Iraq told Army Times.

"We must neutralize this enemy," Army Lt. Gen. Mick Bednarek, chief of the Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq, said in a Wednesday phone interview. "This is not just an Iraqi issue. This is not just a regional issue. This is a common enemy issue that we've got to address."

Islamic State of Iraq fighters have advanced across the northern and western parts of Iraq, seizing control of cities such as Mosul and Fallujah. Estimated to have about 10,000 fighters across Syria and Iraq, the militants have consolidated control over large swaths of territory during the past several weeks.

The group "is not just a violent extremist organization," Bednarek said. "This is an army, and it takes an army to defeat an army."

The militants are well organized, equipped and funded, Bednarek said, and they caught the Iraqi forces off guard.

"This is a very, very difficult, dire and dangerous situation here in Iraq," he said. "We're very concerned about the deteriorating security situation as well as the growing humanitarian crisis. It's not good, and it's not improving fast enough."

President Obama has authorized humanitarian aid to trapped minorities in Iraq, and is considering other options that include possible air strikes against militants, a government official said.

Airdrops of food, water and medicine began Wednesday, the official said.

The source asked not to be named since he was not authorized to speak about the issue. No final decision about airstrikes has been made.

There are about 750 U.S. troops in Iraq. About 400 troops provide security for the U.S. Embassy compound and facilities at the Baghdad International Airport, while more than 200 military advisers are working with Iraqi forces.

"We provided the assessments, and our senior leaders are reviewing those in pretty good detail," he said. "From (there) they'll make some appropriate recommendations to our senior leadership for the way forward as we look to continue current efforts or potentially expand or modify those efforts as we partner with the Iraqis."

After days of intense fighting, militants on Thursday seized the Mosul dam, Iraq's largest hydroelectric dam, giving them control of enormous power and water resources and leverage over the Tigris River that runs through the heart of Baghdad, the Associated Press reported.

The al-Qaeda breakaway group posted a statement online Thursday, confirming it had taken control of the dam and vowing to continue "the march in all directions," as it expands the Islamic state it has imposed over broad swathes of territory straddling the Iraqi-Syrian border. The group said it has seized a total of 17 Iraqi cities, towns and targets - including the dam and a military base - over the past five days. The statement could not be verified but it was posted on a site frequently used by the group, according to the AP.

Halgurd Hekmat, a spokesman for the Kurdish fighters, told the AP that clashes around the dam were ongoing and he didn't know who currently had control over it.

"The Kurds are fighting valiantly, as they always have, but forces are spread very thin up there in the Mosul dam area," Bednarek said Wednesday. "If the dam falls into (militant) hands and the dam is destroyed, the flooding and humanitarian disaster that would cause, not only in Mosul city, but south all the way down the Tigris, would be a monumental catastrophe."

The U.S. also is preparing, if called upon, to provide humanitarian assistance to thousands from Iraq's minority Yazidi community who fled their homes after militants captured their towns in northern Ninewah province.

Faced with death threats, some 50,000 - half of them children, according to U.N. figures - ran into the nearby Sinjar mountains where they are out of reach of the militants, but are cut off from food and water, according to the AP.

The United Nations' World Food Programme and the U.S. Agency for International Development, among other agencies, are trying to get much-needed food, water and supplies to the Yazidis who fled and are now stranded up on the Sinjar mountain range, Bednarek said.

"They're surrounded because (Islamic State) has taken over the town of Sinjar," he said. "To escape the killings, the violence, beheadings, extermination, they have gone up on the mountain top itself."

The western part of Iraq, including Anbar province, continue to be "very dynamic, dire and difficult," Bednarek said.

The militants also have some of Iraq's highways choked with checkpoints, blocking Iraqi Security Forces from resupplying, rearming, refitting and reinforcing its units in the field, Bednarek said.

One positive development is that the crisis has brought together the Sunnis, Shias and Kurds to fight a common enemy, Bednarek said.

The militants are not fighting for a stronger Iraq, Bednarek said, "They're fighting to destroy Iraq."

Regardless of what comes next, the U.S. is "committed to a long-term strategic partnership" with Iraq, Bednarek said.